


Burning

by Invictusimpala



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt/Comfort, Mute Castiel, Sick Castiel, Spells & Enchantments, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 09:51:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2577185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Invictusimpala/pseuds/Invictusimpala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is hit with a spell that renders him speechless, sick, and weak. Dean and Sam take care of him until it wears off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt I received on my tumblr. Thank you so much for reading, enjoy :)

The hunt isn’t going well, not at all. Somehow the witch has made copies of himself, and he’s attacking wholeheartedly. Dean’s knives fly out of his hands as he’s pinned to the ground by one of the clones. He drags the blade up and drives it in.

The witch screeches, powers dying down a little.

Dean gets up just in time to see Castiel double over, gasping as the witch holds his hands over Castiel’s body.

“Cas!” Dean and Sam yell at the same time. Dean’s shoulder feels dislocated, painfully so, but he runs and catches Castiel before he can fall into the mud.

Sam ganks the witch before turning towards them.

“He’s not breathing!” Dean yells, and Sam runs across the clearing faster.

“What the hell happened?” Sam asks, checking Castiel over for a pulse. Cas pulls in a sharp breath and then shoots up, standing for all of two seconds before his knees buckle. Sam catches him under the arm, holding him up and Dean supports his other side.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Cas, are you okay? What happened?”

Castiel opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. His eyes flutter shut and his body goes lax.

“Shit.” Dean curses. They have to work to get Castiel back into the impala. Sam has a pretty bad gash over his shoulder that’s bleeding sluggishly. Dean’s shoulder still hurts, but he can deal. Castiel, Mr. Angel of the Lord, Mr. Invincible passing out on his feet from a witches spell? Not being able to talk? That’s worrisome.

Sam gets in the back with Castiel, holding his head in his lap, trying to clear the dirt from his face with the edge of a blanket they put under him.

Dean steps on the gas pedal, engine roaring, tires squealing as the car kicks up dirt, peeling down back-roads to get to the bunker.

They haul Castiel into Sam’s room, still unconscious. Dean and Sam clean each other up as best they can while they wait for their friend to resurface.

Dean’s arm gets put back in the socket, and Sam’s shoulder has a few new stitches that will scar over eventually.

They take shifts watching Castiel, making sure he’s okay when he wakes, but he doesn't. Dean is asleep when he hears the commotion.

He bolts down the hallway to Sam’s room, sliding on the floor he’s running so fast and can’t stop right away. The door flies open, and Castiel on the floor is revealed to him. Sam is trying to get him back up on the bed alone. Dean helps even if his muscles protest, joints creaking.

Castiel’s eyes are wide, and he looks pale.

“Hey, hey, are you okay?” Dean asks, looking him over for any obvious marks that he’s not. Castiel nods his head, and Sam breathes a sigh of relief Dean can feel on the back of his neck he’s standing so close.

“Do you need anything?” Castiel shakes his head.

“Can you move?”

“Is anything hurt?” Dean and Sam fire rapid questions at him, and Castiel looks overwhelmed with them all.

Cas shakes his head at most of them, but he says he’s hungry, so Dean leaves the room to make soup and burgers, grab beers and bottled water.

Castiel’s face lights up when Dean brings him in a plate piled so high with food that it’s spilling off the sides. He shoves fries into his mouth, eating greedily, and Sam and Dean munch on theirs, making sure Castiel doesn't eat too much.

When he’s done, Castiel shoves the plate from his lap. He still looks pale, but there’s some color back in his cheeks, so Dean writes off food as ‘good’. Sleep is better, he thinks.

Sam takes the plates to the kitchen and returns with more water. Castiel drinks it in a few eager gulps, some dripping from the corners of his mouth as he sucks two bottles worth down.

When he’s finished, he’s left panting, breathing in air deeply, trying to calm his racing heart. Dean shushes him, helps him slide down in bed, checks his temperature while Sam pulls the blankets up past his shoulders.

Dean’s had lots of experience helping Sam when he was sick, but this is different. The second they’re done taking care of Castiel, they’re in the library, looking around for any sort of information they can find on spells that make angels mute, make them weakened and sick.

They find little, only a few questionable articles that say they just need to wait it out. It’s frustrating; both of them want to help Cas now, make him feel better, get him back on his feet. It’s weird seeing an angel as indestructible as Castiel down for the count.

Dean sleeps restlessly, tossing and turning throughout the night. He’s worried this spell is permanent, going to make it so Cas is almost human.

The next morning he wakes slowly, to a noise like scratching at his door, and he slips out of bed silently, grabbing his gun. He counts to three even though it’s only him, and then the door is opened with a slam to reveal a plastic bag.

He sighs, rolling his eyes at his own paranoia as he lowers his gun.

Sam’s voice echos off the walls, the low pitch of it resonating funny in Dean’s ear. He follows it to his room, finding Castiel sitting up, looking much better than yesterday.

On the bed are bags of things he assumes has been bought by Sam for him. There’s different foods, PopTarts and candies, medicines, cold and flu, night and day time stuff.

“Cas has a pretty bad fever, so we should keep it down. I bought some cold medicine to see if it would help, but he burns right through it. I even snuck some prescription stuff from the back when no one was looking, but that doesn't help either.”

“Put it in the cabinet if we ever need it. I don’t know how to keep down an angel fever. Is there anyone we can call?” He asks Cas, but he shakes his head, mouth staying resolutely closed.

“Do you think a bath would help? Like an ice one or at least a cold water bath?” Sam asks, and Dean mulls it over, thinking back. He did that a lot when Sam had a fever over one hundred degrees, ice baths. It was expensive and awkward when they were bouncing from motel to motel, but it worked, broke the fever quickly enough.

“It’s worth a try.” There’s sweat beading at Castiel’s hairline, over his upper lip, down his neck, and Dean goes to draw the bath. They don’t have a lot of ice, but he puts every bit of it they do into the tub of cold water.

Sam helps Castiel hobble into the bathroom, his eyes narrowing in concentration, and Dean laughs.

When his toes first touch the cold of the water, he jumps back, glaring at the two of them.

“Come on, you’ll feel better, I promise.” Sam says, and Castiel watches the water for a bit before he slips in. He shivers violently, his body shaking so hard it looks like his bones are rattling around under his skin.

Dean helps him out of the tub when the fever finally breaks, a gasp falling from his mouth as his temperature drops significantly. It’s not normal, but when has he ever been, Dean thinks.

His boxers are soaked through, the material clinging to his skin, and Dean helps to tug a towel around his waist, and another over his shoulders.

He limps back into Sam’s room where he deposits himself on the bed, laying back on the sheets.

Dean helps to dry him off, get him into some sweatpants in the least awkward way.

Sam rubs his head with a towel, and Cas makes a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat. Dean huffs a quiet laugh, and Castiel shoots him a menacing glare that looks more babyish than scary.

They leave him to finish dressing himself, to finish drying himself, and Dean brings back more food that Castiel accepts, stuffing the sandwich into his mouth, grinning around the bread sheepishly before swallowing.

“You know, you’re supposed to chew your food before you swallow it, right?” Dean asks, and Castiel rolls his eyes.

“Yes, Dean, I understand.”

“Wait, you just talked, are you feeling better?” Castiel twists his hand this way and that, and he nods.

“Yes, I believe I am better. Thank you both for taking care of me.”

“No, problem, Cas, you watch over us more than enough.” Sam smiles and Castiel smiles back at both of them.

“Well, I probably should get going soon,” he says, and they both nod. “But, first, I am going to finish this sandwich. What did you call this? A grilled cheese? It is very enjoyable.”

**Author's Note:**

> [My Tumblr](http://www.invictus-impala.tumblr.com)  
>  I am taking prompts there, if you're interested :)  
> (More info on that [here](http://invictus-impala.tumblr.com/post/99871679299/about-prompts-im-now-taking-prompts-yay-if-you))


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